Summer Outreach Camps 2013

Summer Outreach Camp Preview

Camps at Pico Escondido are fun. Kids have a blast. We want this to be the best week of their lives, and for many, it is just that. This is not just because of the great food, the gym, and the giant swing. It is because of the love of God they experience. Every aspect of camp is designed to point to their loving Creator.

Some highlights:

The Giant Swing

The Pool

Club

Time with their leaders

Here's a short (45 sec) video message about summer outreach camps.

As the video says, between Vida Joven and our international schools ministry, we are expecting 800 kids at outreach camps this year. 297 in 2011, 571 last year. That is some significant growth. Pray that God would continue moving through this ministry. It is exciting! 

Stay tuned for more info soon.

Pico Escondido employee profile - Raffy Figueroa

With this entry, I want to start introducing our staff at Pico Escondido. They are a key reason for Pico Escondido's success. They are great people, and I want those of you who are interested in the work Rebeca and I do to know them.

Raffy Figueroa, Pico Escondido Guest Services Coordinator

Raffy tells his story:

Hello my name is Rafael Figueroa (Raffy). I was born in Las Yerbas - a farming community outside of La Vega. I have 3 siblings. I am the youngest. In my childhood everything was very good until the moment when my mother had to go to the United States. After that I had to several times change what family I lived with and adapt to new customs, but I continued my studies - with great sacrifice. I moved to the city of La Vega where I graduated from high school. In July 2003 I was invited to a Young Life outreach camp, where I met Christ. From that moment my life started making sense. I entered college in 2005 to study civil engineering, finishing classes in 2011. In February of that same year I started working at the camp where I met the Lord. At that time I worked in the construction department under Joey Espinoza. In mid-June of 2012 I began as the head of the guest services department.

In August 2012, our guest services coordinator (Jacob Salmond) moved back to Oregon to work with Young Life there. After a long search and interviewing several candidates, we decided that Raffy was the man for the job. In addition to being smart and hard-working, he also has a history of service, faithfully serving as a volunteer leader in our field ministry for several years. Until recently, he was the head leader at the Vida Joven club nearest camp. Raffy loves the Lord, loves the ministry of Vida Joven, and even though he could earn more money working elsewhere as a civil engineer, he chose to stay here to help other kids have the best week of their life at Pico Escondido, just as he did back in 2003. Raffy got married on May 11. Please bless Raffy and Genesis' marriage with your prayers.

Rebeca's Trip to the YL Central America Leadership Retreat

YL Central America Leadership Team

Fifteen adults, four kids, one infant, all under one roof as the Central American regional team gets together in San Jose, Costa Rica for five days. We got together Saturday night coming from each country in Central America where we have Young Life ministry (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama) to be together for a time of casting vision, praying together, getting some training, and sharing what's in our hearts.

Our son David and I got on a plane Friday afternoon (this being David's 13th flight!) and got to San Jose at about 7pm. My cousin Debora was waiting for us, and we spent the night at my cousin Esteban's house. Saturday morning was good and relaxing, just a great time to unwind, let David play around with the dog, and then drove to my aunt's house for lunch. Then they took David and me to the house of Kevin Suwyn (Central America regional director) for the beginning of the retreat.

We had been praying and planning this time for a couple months now. We want to create spaces and times so we can share as a team and encourage each other, as often it feels like we are all alone in our areas, sometimes bearing heavy burdens. We started with worship and sharing what anxieties we'd left behind. My heart felt heavy as we went around the circle: an aunt wrongly accused of drug trafficking now in jail, awaiting trial, possibly facing 3-5 years of prison. A brother-in-law who that morning had fell off a roof, now paralyzed for life, never to leave the hospital again. Children and families left behind for a week. A son struggling with school. A brother, moving back home with his family of four. And there we were, opening our hearts with each other because this is the place where we can do it...

And as we shared what were the things we wanted to be able to trust God with, we also shared the things that we were so thankful for: A new opportunity to work with both of the main gangs in one of the countries, as a family of missionaries just moved into the neighborhood; God's provision throughout the year. Hollman, team leader in Nicaragua shared the story of one of the girls impacted by Young Life - a girl whose family problems revolved about how to get so and so out of jail; a life marked with violence, and not one good example to follow; a Young Life leader entering her life and starting a friendship, introducing her to Jesus. Her life has been transformed and now she has two spiritual daughters herself. I got goosebumps as Hollman said, "I see Young Life shaking the very basis of Nicaragua. It won't be easy, even dangerous... but we wanna see thousands of kids come to Christ."

We finished last night with some worship time and prayer. Looking forward to another day!

Raffy gets married

 

On Saturday night, Rafael Figueroa got married to his girlfriend Genesis. Rafael (Raffy) is Pico Escondido's guest services coordinator. This was a fun event, with sharply dressed people...

sharply dressed babies...

legal formalities... 

and the random prankster that seems to always be in every Young Life crowd and event.

Don't worry! He got up a few seconds later. It was all a joke, but the bride was as surprised as everyone else.

Overall, it was a fun event - a great celebration of these two friends' union.

Young Life in Latin America

As Rebeca and I have both been involved in Young Life's ministry in Latin America for several years, we thought you might like to learn more about it. Following is a great video they produced a couple of years ago. Some of it is shot at Pico Escondido, and Rebeca is in it, filmed while she was still on staff in Guatemala.

Young Life Latin America Video

Spring 2013 Work Teams

Preparing re-bar for guardrail project

Spring is a lot of fun at Pico Escondido. We have friends from all over the US come help us improve camp. This Spring we had seven teams: Michigan College Life, Floyd County (GA) Young Life, Trinity School (Durham, NC), Auburn (AL) YL, NE Grand Rapids (MI) YL, Alger Park Church (MI), and Winston-Salem (NC) YL, as well as a couple of friends from Colorado Springs. One of the challenges working with volunteer teams is not knowing much about their skill set or how hard they will work. This spring we had really hard-working teams that often exceeded our expectations.

Working on the new shop

We had a bunch of projects planned, as we had as many as 75 volunteers working at a time. Our biggest project was construction of a new shop. This will not only improve our maintenance capacity but allows us to move smaller shops out of our main lodge and office buildings to be able to use those spaces in ways that are more compatible with the rest of the building. The current wood shop, located in the main lodge (Cigua) will be converted in the future into additional housing. The current main maintenance shop is located in the building that houses our offices and camp kitchen. This space will be converted into an office for Vida Joven (YL field ministry in the DR).

Pouring the foundation for the kitchen extension.

Our kitchen is much better than it was a few years ago, but as we have added beds in the past two years, we needed to expand our food prep area to ensure we could provide food at the levels of quality, quantity, and hygiene that we desire. This extension will add about 150 square feet of space, which will include an additional counter for food prep and space for an ice maker.

Guardrail along road to gym

Screening sand for making mortar for guardrail project.

The guardrail project will not only keep vehicles safer as they drive down toward the gym and new cabins, but will also be a beautiful decorative touch and include lights for better getting around camp at night.

Improving camp landscaping

 One area in which work teams have consistently helped us is our landscaping. We are only able to have one full-time landscaper on staff. He is kept very busy mowing, raking and doing other landscaping maintenance. He has very little time for projects to upgrade our landscaping. Teams are wonderful help in this area. This Spring the main project was the garden in front of our offices. It looks wonderful!

Thinning out trees

Another great way in which work teams have helped us in the past couple of years has been thinning out trees. We planted thousands of trees in the early years of Pico Escondido. Most of those trees survived and are nice, but they block the views around camp and the main species we planted has a short lifespan in these rainy mountains. We removed around 30 trees this spring. We will later plant new trees of different species which are more strategically placed to protect our beautiful vistas.

Thank you, Spring 2013 work teams!

How do I take a work team to Pico Escondido?

First, take a look at this video about serving at Pico Escondido.

Taking a work team to Pico Escondido is probably the easiest international trip you can make. Young Life has a program called Young Life Expeditions which helps people do short-term service trips, both domestically and internationally. If you tell YLX that you want to do a trip to the Dominican Republic, they will give you information about how to get started, what you will need, guidance with fundraising, and help with flight reservations if you desire. As you get closer to your trip date and want to refine details, you will communicate directly with Pico staff. We will take care of all logistics in country, from food, lodging, and ground transportation, to projects, information about local ministry, and entertainment. 

For more information, go to Pico's US website. We look forward to having you come see us!

David is growing

 

Life as a parent has been a whirlwind! David is a great kid. We are in awe of the mystery of life and the wonder of the development of children. He began to crawl a couple of weeks ago, so we have been making the house as baby-safe as possible and reasonable.

His favorite passtime now is to crawl over to something he can use to stand up. This chest is one of his favorites. The other is the kitchen table and benches. Below is a short clip of him traversing one of the benches.

In spite of the late nights, greater demands on our time, and uncertainties that come with a new stage of life, we love this child! He is a wonderful, sweet boy who is curious and observant, loves baths, the outdoors, his uncle Sami and his dog.

More videos below if you are interested.





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